The first game I got to sample at E3 was PlanetWide Games' massively multiplayer RPG, Risk Your Life: Path of the Emperor. Admittedly, I had never heard of the title before I played it, which is quite a shame. Risk Your Life is the most fun I've had playing an MMORPG, and this is coming from someone who has dabbled in his fair share of games in the genre. The developers of the game have worked hard to set the title apart from all the other MMOs in the market and have done a good job.

The goal of the game is to take over the world. Of course, being an MMO, this is impossible to do alone and requires many allies. Players band together to form guilds of up to 50 players, which goes out into the lands in attempt to complete the game's goal; however, as no one player can take over the world alone, so no one guild can either. Guilds must form alliances to be considered formidable. Once a guild becomes powerful enough, it can declare war on another guild. This is where the player-versus-player comes in, people of opposing guilds are permitted to attack and kill one another at will. The leader of the guild that conquers the land becomes Emporer. To protect newer players, however, in order to fight a player is not in a guild, you must ask them for a duel, which they can accept or decline.

RYL: Path of the Emperor sports a politics system as well. Within each guild, the leader can tax his or her guild members for the betterment of the guild and the fortress that you can build. Of course, taxing a fair price will be crucial as too high a tax could cost you guild members and too low a tax could keep your guild or fortress from growing much.

A rowdy bunch

For those players not as interested in fighting one another, there will be plenty else to do. The world of RYL will be full of various quests and missions. Furthermore, players will be able to craft and fuse weapons and armor. For example, if a player has two swords, but one only has high strength and the other only has high accuracy, the player will have the option of combining the swords into a weapon that has the stats of both weapons. Essentially, the fused weapon will have both high strength and accuracy. Plus, more powerful weapons will glow so that other players can see how much time and work you put into building up your weapon.

Probably the most appealing aspect of RYL: Path of the Emperor the ability to essentially play free of monthly fees. PlanetWide signed with a survey company to make this service possible. As long as players answer a certain number of surveys per month, the company will essentially cover that player's monthly fees. Even better is that if additional surveys are completed, the player can begin earning extra cash that can be used however he or she sees fit.

Riot riot riot

One thing I really liked about the game is that, unlike other MMOs like FFXI, you are actively engaged in the physical attacks during battle. Everytime you click the mouse, your character swings his sword, rather than just having the character make automatic, repeated swings. This is the first MMO I've seen in which characters can jump. It sometimes feels more like a massively multiplayer online adventure game, than a role-playing game.

Overall, I was very impressed with the game and I look forward to its June 30 release. Those of you looking to get into the MMO genre, but don't want something heavy and confusing, seriously take a good look at this game. For those of you who are looking for a deep, complex MMO, this game is also right up your alley. It seems that how you play the game will determine what you get out of it.